Airlines are struggling to keep customers happy but according to a new survey from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), those efforts may not result in higher profits.

IATA surveyed 60,000 fliers from around the world and measured their satisfaction across 75 “individual passenger experience factors” including crew interactions, available services and products for 30 major airlines.

The data did not show any relation between customer satisfaction rates and airline financial success, reports Skift.

“Initially we thought this presentation may also include a link between passenger satisfaction and commercial success,” Tim Jasper Schaff, Director Marketing and Sales for IATA told attendees during a special session on Cabin Trends during the recent IATA World Passenger Summit in Hamburg. “There is academic evidence, across various industries, where they found strong links that if your customers are happy, you’ll be successful. You can measure that, by share price and so on.”

So why does the airline industry differ?

Schaaf attributes the problem to something he called the “spiral of spoilage” in an industry where the bar is constantly being raised by other competitors in the field.

“The significance of [cabin] attributes moves all the time. For example, flat bed in business class. If you had that 10 or 15 years ago, it was clearly causing passenger satisfaction and people were happy,” said Schaaf.

But when such a feature becomes ubiquitous, passengers take it for granted and it becomes a rat race to keep up…